Interesting story here about the effectiveness versus charm style of leadership - currently embodied in the guise of folks like NY Mayor Bloomberg, Newark Mayor-Elect Cory Booker, and I would add DC Mayor Anthony Williams who’s leaving on top. I do wonder that if that mindset might trickle up, where people saw what the charisma of a Bush produces (Katrina) and if his succesor may turn out to be in the mold of someone who promises to get the job done and without the drama. Maybe that’s an opening for someone like Mark Warner (or Al Gore).
» Breaking News
RNC Spent Almost $30,000 More In Clothes For Palin
Mumbai Terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab Promised $1,250 For Attack
Economy Kills Broadway’s Latest Version Of “Grease”
Katie Price: Dwight Yorke Ignores Disabled Son Harvey
Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe Writing Book
Archive for May, 2006
Yes, it makes sense to decrease funding for Homeland Security for the two cities most likely to be hit by a terrorist attack. Not.
The two cities attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, will receive far less antiterrorism money under plans unveiled today by the Department of Homeland Security, which has designated more money for many smaller cities throughout the country.
Washington and New York will receive 40 percent less in urban grant money compared to last year, with Washington dropping from $77 million to $46 million and New York falling from $207 million to $124 million, DHS officials said. The combined total means that the two areas bear almost the entire brunt of a $120 million cut in the overall budget for the program, the statistics show.
New York, Washington DC, hit by a terrorist attack? Why would you think that could happen?
It’s impossible to watch this video and not think Sen. Clinton will be running for higher office (and front page NY Times stories to the contrary, the popular two-term president appears right up front). I think those who dismiss her out of hand - at least when it comes to getting the Dem nomination - aren’t thinking clearly enough.
So why is everyone talking about them.
In his May 30 “Best of the Web Today” column, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto criticized a May 29 Associated Press news analysis article by political writer Ron Fournier titled, “Democrats Eye November Landslide,” and issued a challenge to test his theory that the “mainstream media” are “generally biased in favor of liberals and Democrats, but this ends up helping conservatives and Republicans by breeding complacency on the Democratic side.” Taranto asked: “Can you find a similar article — that is, a news story, not an opinion column, preferably written months before the election — speculating about the possibility of a Republican landslide in 1994, when there actually was one? How about in 1980?”
Click here for, as they say, the rest of the story…
Brendan Nyhan notes that Democratic women are increasingly using the metaphor of a lioness protecting her cubs in order to project strength not commonly associated with women, especially Democratic ones. Nala, anyone?
AP caught altering their stories to make Harry Reid look bad.
Good reason we stick to our system of healthcare for me, not for thee.
You can add Canadians to the list of foreigners who are healthier than Americans. Americans are 42 percent more likely than Canadians to have diabetes, 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, and 12 percent more likely to have arthritis, Harvard Medical School researchers found. That is according to a survey in which American and Canadian adults were asked over the telephone about their health.
The study comes less than a month after other researchers reported that middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their counterparts in England.
“We’re really falling behind other nations,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a co-author of the Canadian study.
Canada’s national health insurance program is at least part of the reason for the differences found in the study, Woolhandler said. Universal coverage makes it easier for more Canadians to get disease-preventing health services, she said.
The Republican strategy for the 2006 election sounds a lot like the poorly designed 2002 electoral strategy pursued by the Democrats.
Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s top political adviser, laid out a plan to win the 2002 congressional elections by stressing national security. For 2006, Rove is framing a strategy for Republicans to sell the U.S. economy.
In a recent speech, Rove argued that Bush’s policies of tax cuts and trade agreements had pulled the nation out of recession, created millions of jobs, boosted productivity and increased disposable income. That record can help lead Republicans to victory in November, Rove said in the May 15 speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Political experts say it may be a tough sell: Voters don’t feel optimistic, polls show, and growth rates are expected to slow as the housing market cools and gasoline prices remain near all-time highs.
“The administration needs to change the electorate’s overall psychology,” says Stuart Rothenberg, who publishes a nonpartisan Washington political report. “It would be a huge asset for the Republican Party if people could start to focus on the economy, appreciate it and see it as something that has worked, but I see no evidence that that’s going to happen.”
Another bad day for the Dow
Higher oil prices and sliding consumer confidence sent stocks plunging Tuesday as a weak sales report from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. raised concerns about discretionary spending. The Dow Jones industrial skidded almost 185 points.
Although the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell less than expected, investors were nervous about an eroding consumer picture after Wal-Mart blamed its modest sales on the impact of gasoline and utilities prices on its customers.
And here comes gas rage…
Tempers are rising along with gas prices. Gas stations across the country report that drivers are taking out their rage against big oil by yelling at clerks and cashiers and sometimes driving off without paying.
“Everyone is suffering at the same time,” said Sam Shirazie, a clerk at a Chevron station east of downtown Los Angeles. “If I could help to reduce that pain, I would.”
No detailed statistics are kept on incidents of gas rage.
As USA Today concludes in this op-ed, it is incumbent upon us to have a full and exhaustive investigation into what happened into Haditha and a swift and severe punishment on any who may have committed crimes. Too often, as I believe happened with Abu Ghraib, we act as if these things can be papered over and exist solely as a PR blip that can quickly be counted upon to be forgotten. In fact, these troubles illustrate to our nation and the world: what sort of country is America? I expect one of the defenses bubbling up among the conservative movement is the well-worn trope that “we’re not as bad as Saddam”. If being not as bad as a muderous dictator is the model for American conduct, we are surely doomed.
We are better than that. Time to start acting like it.
At a certain point you have to go… stop!
Today marks another Memorial Day, this time with the American death toll in Iraq well past 2400 lives, with over 18,000 injured. Just over six months have passed since hawkish Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) called for the beginning of a U.S. pullout in Iraq but just days ago, President Bush outlined his latest plan, amid rumors of a withdrawal, to “stay the course, amid graphic reports of a new My Lai.
All of this would seem to call out for a re-thinking of positions or assumptions on newspaper editorial pages. Indeed, three of the most influential did weigh in Sunday with Iraq editorials. All of them, despite voicing strong crtiicism in the same editorials, came out against starting to bring the boys home.
This continues the depressing tradition of newspaper editorials saying most of the right things, and pressing charges against the administration s handling of the war while arguing for more time or a few more months for the latest turning point in Iraq to produce a positive outcome. This pattern could and possibly will go on nearly forever.
A long time ago I believed that while it was wrong to go to war in Iraq, we had to “fix” what we had broken, lest Iraq descend into chaos. Yet, 3 years after the fact - in almost the same time we had smashed the Axis and sent Europe onto the path of rebuilding itself, Iraq is still a major war zone and has really not shown significant progress. Afghanistan was supposed to be the model for this sort of nation-building on the cheap, but their government has no real control and anti-American sentiment there is clearly significant. I personally think the best model going forward is not the misguided strategy of imposing democracy on nations (the last refuge after the WMD hunt petered out and we allowed Bin Laden to escape at Torah Bora), but rather back to our previous path of eliminating threats. Job #1 should be eliminating and containing the Bin Laden/Al Qaeda threat, rather than being sitting ducks in Iraq training an Iraqi army that - quite frankly - could turn on us in a minute and regularly betrays our troops in the field. It’s time to get realistic about all of this and leave the mythical democracy up to the fiction writers.
Interesting uptick in Al Gore from TradeSports recently.
It’s hard for me to write about Gore from purely a cold analytical POV. Gore’s the first politician I ever became a fan of, way back in 1988 when I was only 10 and barely understood what was going on in the electoral process. I became more excited about Clinton’s run because of his selection of Al Gore as his running mate. One of the ongoing themes of The West Wing tv show is that everyone involved in politics has their one “guy” they’re all for (Bartlett for Leo, Santos for Josh). They may really like other pols - in my case I’d count President Clinton and Sen. Edwards among the pols I really like - but you have that one. For me it’s Al Gore.
I really hope he runs, if only to push the other Dems in the running to be real. And hell, he will be the only one in the running - Democrat or Republican - who can say they got a majority of America to vote for them for president.
>> Is Al Gore Our Man?
>> Frank Rich: Gore ‘right man in right place at right time’
Woah, that was good and entertaining. An excellent appetizer before the main dish.
We must not cover up this incident, those responsible must be punished and we must make it clear to the world that this behavior is the exception to the admirable work our Marines and the rest of the Armed Services do. This is not the time to reprise the brush-off of Abu Ghraib as “harmless fraternity pranks”.
The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif’s house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.
Two U.S. military boards are investigating the incident as potentially the gravest violation of the law of war by U.S. forces in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq. The U.S. military ordered the probes after Time magazine presented military officials in Baghdad this year with the findings of its own investigation, based on accounts of survivors and on a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student at Haditha’s hospital and inside victims’ houses.
When our armed services are out in the world, their reactions - and our reactions to that - represent our face to the world. It is far past time we began acting like it again.
I’m waiting on all those idiots to issue their apologies to him. Not holding my breath.
Official: Marines could be charged with murder
Investigators believe that their criminal investigation into the deaths of about two dozen Iraqi civilians points toward a conclusion that Marines committed unprovoked murders, a senior defense official said Friday.
The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents. A separate investigation is seeking to determine if Marines lied to cover up the killings.
The official, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the yet-to-be-completed investigation, said the evidence developed by investigators strongly indicates the killings last November in the insurgent-plagued city of Haditha in the western province of Anbar were unjustified.
>> August: “How in the hell did they get it right where Michelle Malkin, TownHall, PowerLine, and FreeRepublic got it wrong?”
White supremacists approve of Lou Dobbs’ anti-immigration fearmongering.
Lynn Swann, one of the black Republicans being hyped by the GOP and the press as the new hope for the right, is now down by 18% versus sitting PA Governor Ed Rendell.
Bob Ehrlich realizes that he’s in trouble. He’s a Republican governor who won by the skin of his teeth in an overwhelmingly strong Democratic state with two challengers who could beat him in the fall. So what does the erstwhile Bobby Haircut do? He goes to the people who brought you White House prostitute Jeff Gannon, GOPUSA, to send out an email to scrounge for money for his campaign.
Interestingly, for a politician who claims to be a moderate and has tried to have a moderate makeover in this election year, he sounds like yet another Bush Republican:
I cannot stress enough that we can’t be on defense in this election…the Democrats are charging hard against the President, against the House and Senate, and we have to take the fight to them in the places we can like Maryland.
Ehrlich is simply out of touch with the mainstream of Maryland. We can’t afford to continue this local version of the Republican culture of corruption here in the Free State.
A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.
Two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines’ defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.
Officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha, a lawless, insurgent-plagued city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.
God, the President of the United States is a shmuck. I still balk at ranking him as the worst, but every day and every death he marches closer to the booby prize.
But in an unusual admission of a personal mistake, Mr. Bush said he regretted challenging insurgents in Iraq to “bring it on” in 2003, and said the same about his statement that he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” Those two statements quickly came to reinforce his image around the world as a cowboy commander in chief. “Kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people,” Mr. Bush said. “I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner.”
He went on to say that the American military’s biggest mistake was the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs of detainees showed them in degrading and abusive conditions. “We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time,” Mr. Bush said, his voice heavy with regret.
“His voice heavy with regret”. I didn’t see the conference, but I’m apt to believe the Times is once again clapping for Tinkerbell to come save this woeful presidency.
(UPDATE: Now I’ve seen it. There was no “heavy with regret”, just the usual “I’m not remotely qualified for this job no way no how” voice we’ve suffered with for 5 long years)
You know what the big mistake was?
The Iraq War.
Recent Comments